


The Brainwashed-Into-Killing-Your-Allies Club Welcomes You

by INMH



Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2020 [19]
Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Depression, Gen, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Violence, Murder, Past Character Death, Strong Language, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:27:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25279999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INMH/pseuds/INMH
Summary: It sort of feels like they need a chance to unwind. Like, immediately.
Relationships: Female Deputy & Cameron Burke & Staci Pratt
Series: hc_bingo fanfiction fills 2020 [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1789369
Kudos: 8





	The Brainwashed-Into-Killing-Your-Allies Club Welcomes You

Rook was surprised to see the lights on in the 8-Bit Pizza Bar.  
  
Nick was at home with Kim, Adelaide had mentioned spending some ‘quality time’ with Xander; Jess was in the Whitetails, Grace was at the church guarding her dad’s grave, and Sharky and Hurk were off doing… Whatever the hell it was they did when they were together. Rook had only gotten a good look once and after she’d seen the pig and the shaving cream she’d decided some questions were best left unanswered.  
  
So who was inside now?  
  
She kept her gun drawn as she stepped inside, pushing the door open carefully enough that it didn’t make any noise. Rook poked her head inside and glanced around, and her gaze almost immediately fell on the lone figure sitting at one of the tables.  
  
“ _Burke,_ ” She sighed, holstering her gun. “What are you doing here?”  
  
“I’m getting wasted,” Burke drawled, pausing to take another swig from the beer bottle in his hand. “The fuck’re you doing?”  
  
“Why are you getting wasted?”  
  
Burke drained the last of the beer and then pitched the bottle at the wall, where it broke and the pieces of glass scattered on the ground. “I killed a man the day before yesterday,” He said, almost conversationally, before reaching for another bottle and popping the top with practiced ease on the edge of the counter. “I blew his goddamn brains out because Faith Seed had her hooks in my brain. And today I stood with everyone who loved him at his funeral like I wasn’t the one that took him away from them. No better reason to ruin my _fucking_ liver than that, Rookie.”  
  
“So you’re punishing yourself?”  
  
“You’re goddamn right I am.” Burke opened the new bottle, flipping the cap over his shoulder. “You should have just let Faith kill me. Fuck, you should have let Tracey kill me.”  
  
“She doesn’t want to kill you.”  
  
“But she _did_ , for a second there.”  
  
“She knows it was Faith.”  
  
“But I’m the one who pulled the trigger.”  
  
Rook could feel darkness creeping in, seeping into the otherwise stable mood she’d managed to maintain since coming to the Henbane. Tammy and Wheaty had expressed forgiveness for what had happened with Eli, but Rook still couldn’t quite manage it for herself, and she naturally couldn’t help but drawing comparisons between her situation and Burke’s. She pulled up a seat beside him at the table and, after a moment’s hesitation, reached out an arm and awkwardly wrapped it around his shoulders.  
  
Burke tensed, and she withdrew. “Sorry.”  
  
“Don’t.” Burke looked at her with hollow eyes. “I appreciate the attempt, Rook, but I can’t go down that rabbit hole just yet. I don’t like dreading things that I can’t fix right now, so I’m putting it off.”  
  
“Putting what off?”  
  
“Oh, just the inevitable mental breakdown- not just from the fact that I killed an innocent man who was trying to help me in cold blood and I get to live with the guilt and shame of that for the rest of my life, but also the fact that my entire fucking career and life is going to be over once this is all said and done.”  
  
Rook frowned. “Would the Marshals Office fire you for this?”  
  
Burke snorted. “ _Probably._ Even though there’s enough witness testimony and other evidence to suggest that I wasn’t in my right mind when I did it, my mental stability would always be in question. And maybe they wouldn’t be wrong.”  
  
Maybe they wouldn’t.  
  
After all, how could someone go back to normal after something like that? How could someone mentally come _back_ from something like murdering an ally without meaning to? From Rook’s perspective, it was a Herculanean task: She would know, she’d been struggling with it herself.  
  
She glanced at the bottles of alcohol lined up on the counter. Rook wasn’t a drinker; her mother had been an overly enthusiastic one when Rook had been a child (she still was, to the best of Rook’s knowledge), and it had soured her feelings towards alcohol considerably.  
  
Still, if there was any time to just let loose…  
  
“Mind if I join you?”  
  
Burke raised an eyebrow, and then pushed a bottle towards her. “By all means.”  
  
Rook hesitated, and then added: “You mind if I invite someone else?”  
  
Burke stiffened. “Who?”  
  
“Deputy Pratt.”  
  
Burke was quiet for a moment, probably running those calculations. It occurred to Rook that, having been under the influence of the Bliss for so long, she didn’t know how much Burke knew about what had been going on in Hope County beyond Faith’s bunker. Maybe he didn’t know about Jacob Seed and that fucking music box of his, or that Pratt had been his captive.  
  
In the end, Burke simply shrugged. “Go for it.”  
  
Rook pulled out her radio, hesitating. Should she? Maybe it would be better if she left Pratt alone; when last she’d seen him, he’d been fairly fragile after being rescued from Jacob’s bunker. But then, maybe he’d already found a way to cope.  
  
Still, only polite to ask. “Pratt,” Rook said into the radio. “Where are you?”  
  
A pause. Then, “ _Widow’s Crick. Where are you?_ ”  
  
“Why the fuck does everyone call it ‘crick’ and not ‘creek’?” Rook whispered, shaking her head. “Whatever.” Into the radio she said, “Can you come to the 8-Bit Pizza Bar?”  
  
Another pause. “… _Why?_ ”  
  
“You’ll see. Just come.”  
  
[---]  
  
“ _This_ was a grrrr _eat_ idea!”  
  
Pratt pitched forward off the chair, not quite catching himself in time before he hit the floor. “ _Ah!_ Damn it! Shit!”  
  
“You okay?” Burke slurred, _surprisingly_ composed for someone who’d drank as much as he had tonight. Rook was impressed.  
  
“Yeah, yeah, I’m good- look, Burke, dude, I just, I gotta say-” Pratt dragged himself to his feet and very nearly fell over again; evidently he was not as good at holding his liquor as Burke was. “Like when we met, I thought you had the _biggest_ fucking stick up your ass. Like, a whole fucking tree-trunk. Honestly though, honestly, you’re really not that bad.”  
  
“Thanks man,” Burke mumbled. “I really… I really appreciate that.”  
  
“I mean even if you _were_ that bad, and you’re _totally_ not, you’d still look really fucking good compared to the shithead Peggies I was with for almost two fuckin’ months,” Pratt drawled, grabbing onto the backs of one of the chairs to keep himself upright. “Like, scumbags, bottom of the totem pole bad. Pond scum looks better. What… What was I talking about? Rook, what, uh, what was I talking about?”  
  
“ _Pfft,_ ” Rook grimaced apologetically, shrugging. “I dunno. Burke?”  
  
“Mm… Peggies,” Burke said eventually. “They suck.”  
  
“Oh _God_ they _suuuuck_ ,” Pratt drawled, letting go of the chair to lean on the table. “God, they suck. Their music _sucks_ , their aesthetic _sucks_ , their fucking _faces_ sucks- suck? Suck. Their faces suck.”  
  
“Everything sucks,” Burke returned gloomily.  
  
“But especially the Peggies, they- they suck the most,” Rook supplied, trying to keep her thoughts all in one place. She eyed her bottle, wondering if she should finish it off; She didn’t feel _too_ bad, but then, Rook had only had…  
  
…How many drinks had she had?  
  
“Hey, uh… How many drinks, uh… Burke? You okay?” Rook leaned over, gasping as the chair wobbled beneath her- _boy_ were these things unsteady- and patted Burke’s back. He had folded his arms on the tabletop and his head set down on top of them.  
  
“Hm?” He grunted.  
  
“You alright?”  
  
“Tired.”  
  
“Then, like… Go to sleep.”  
  
“Don’t want to. Nightmares.”  
  
“Mm,” Pratt nodded, eyes shut. “Fuck, nightmares. Of the hunts, of the wolves, of Jacob… What’re yours?”  
  
_Eli, blaming me for his death,_ Rook thought, because Pratt had asked Burke and not her and she didn’t want to say it out loud anyway. _Joey in the chair. You in the chair. Faith making Burke shoot Virgil._  
  
Burke lifted his head, blinking drowsily. “Faith. And Virgil.”  
  
“Yeah.” Rook patted his back again.  
  
“I can kinda sorta control my thoughts when I’m awake. Can’t do it when I’m asleep.” Burke rubbed his eyes, and then propped his head up on a hand. “Fuck it, I just wanna forget.”  
  
Pratt dragged a chair over to sit next on Burke’s other side, dropping his head onto the Marshal’s shoulder. “Me too.”  
  
“Same,” Rook offered sadly, leaning on Burke’s other shoulder. “Same.”  
  
A couple of tears leaked out. Rook was too drunk to stop them, so she just pressed her face into the fabric of Burke’s shirt and tried to ignore them.  
  
She grabbed her bottle and downed what was left.  
  
[---]  
  
When Rook woke up at some point the next morning, it felt like someone had pasted her eyelids shut.  
  
There was light streaming in through the window above her head, and just seeing the sunbeam coming through the glass was enough to make her squeeze her eyes shut in discomfort.  
  
_Fuck._  
  
There was pressing into her stomach, and her left arm was leaning up against something that felt like a person. After a few minutes, she forced herself to open her eyes and look around more carefully: Burke was leaning up against the wall, with Rook lying alongside him on the floor; Pratt was snoring softly and lying on top of them both, legs across Burke’s lap and with his head on Rook’s stomach.  
  
The longer Rook was awake, the more Pratt’s head on her unsettled stomach was enough to make her uncomfortable. Eventually she had to weasel out from underneath him, lifting and setting him down on the floor; naturally, Pratt was disturbed by the movement and began to stir, which in turn made Burke start to wake up too.  
  
“Where am I?” Pratt mumbled.  
  
“Pizza bar,” Rook responded, rolling onto her side and shutting her eyes again.  
  
“Why does my head hurt?”  
  
“We got super drunk.” There was a pause, and then a mad scrambling behind her- Rook rolled back over to see Burke and Pratt untangling themselves, looking at each other with a vaguely horrified expression. “Oh calm down, your clothes are still on.”  
  
“God-damn,” Burke rasped, reaching up to cover his eyes. “I don’t think I’ve gone on a bender like that since college.”  
  
“I don’t think I’ve gone on a bender like that _ever_ ,” Pratt groaned, lying down again and covering his head with his hands. “God, I feel like someone’s beating me with a fucking hammer.”  
  
“I actually don’t feel that bad,” Rook said, surprised that the headache wasn’t nearly as intense as the sporadic migraines she’d had throughout her life, and her stomach wasn’t nearly as upset as it could have been. “Maybe you’re just both lightweights,” She smirked weakly as Pratt and Burke glowered at her; Pratt went the extra mile and managed to flip her off with an unsteady hand.  
  
Abruptly, the door flew open.  
  
What ensued was a mad scramble as the Deputies and Marshal went for their weapons with clumsy hands. Somewhere in the panic Rook accidentally head-butted Burke’s side ( _right_ in the bullet-proof vest) and got kicked in the shoulder by Pratt. “ _Ow!_ ”  
  
“Damn it!”  
  
“ _Shit!_ ”  
  
“Uh, you guys cool?”  
  
Sharky and Hurk were standing in the doorway, regarding the three law enforcement officials with wide eyes.  
  
“It’s just _them_ ,” Rook sighed, dropping back onto the floor like a kid who’d just been told school was canceled for the day. “We’re fine, go back into your comas.”  
  
“Marshal, you wanna hand me my gun that you fuckin’ kicked?” Pratt growled, curling in on himself.  
  
“Yeah, yeah, take your fucking gun,” Burke snapped, throwing the handgun with _far_ too little caution for Rook’s liking.  
  
Hurk gave an exaggerated grimace, and Sharky’s eyes widened. “Whoa, wait- he’s a U.S. Marshal?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Shit, uh, gotta go, see you-”  
  
“Oh _God_ , they haven’t invented a word for how little I care about whatever you did or didn’t do,” Burke cut in miserably, banging his head back against the wall. “Even if I wanted to arrest you right now I couldn’t. Go about your damn business, it can’t be any worse than what Eden’s Gate’s been up to.”  
  
“Don’t challenge them!” Rook and Pratt groaned at the same time.  
  
“Aw, come on now, y’all don’t gotta be like that.”  
  
[---]  
  
“Come on, boys. If I can handle a little walk in the Montana sunshine, so can you.”  
  
“ _Aaagh!_ ”  
  
“Pratt, stop being a baby.”  
  
“Fuck off, I gotta puke again.”  
  
Rook turned around, shielding her eyes with a hand and watching as Pratt stumbled off to the side of the road, retching violently.  
  
“Wimp,” Burke mumbled.  
  
Rook gasped. “ _Burke, over there!_ ”  
  
Burke whipped around, raising his shotgun. Nothing was there, and all that was accomplished was Burke violently moving his already pounding head. He turned back to a grinning Rook, one palm braced against his temple; he used the other to flip her off. “I hate you.”  
  
“Sure you do.”  
  
She turned back to the road, reaching up to press her fingers against her eyelids and trying to block out the sound of Pratt puking.  
  
Rook didn’t feel great, but somehow the physical misery went a long way towards blocking out and/or distracting from the mental and emotional pain she’d heaped onto herself over the last few weeks.  
  
Well, she just had a little more clean-up to do in the Henbane, and then she would go to the compound to confront Joseph.  
  
And then, thank _God_ , everything would be back to something like normalcy.  
  
-End


End file.
